Always choose a non-invasive method to read a gravestone. Don't do a rubbing, don't add shaving cream, don't use flour on a stone. Instead, use a large mirror to direct bright sunlight onto the face of the stone, or -- if you can -- visit the cemetery at different times of the day and under different lighting conditions and photograph what can be read easily.

My goal as a contributor to Find a Grave is to help preserve the historic, artistic, and genealogical details of grave stones by photographing them. Locally, and when traveling, I seek out and capture images of the at-risk, almost illegible, unusual, oldest, deteriorating, or possibly overlooked markers encountered, as well as newer stones that "call" to me...or are unique or interesting. Reviewing published transcriptions and "readings" to add in burials missing from the Find a Grave database has helped tremendously when identifying stones that had been considered impossible to read. Since 2015, I've captured images of the oldest surviving stones in over 160 cemeteries. Hopefully I have been able to "discover" your ancestor's grave as a way to pay it forward for those who have done the same for me.

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Researching the surnames Banks - Breckenridge - Champney - Gee / Jay - Green - Henry - Hudson - Kreinheder - McCulley - Monzingo - Pellman - Robinson - Schooler ... and more since 1983

Photographing primarily in the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier counties of New York State

Studying the Shaker communities in Kentucky (Pleasant Hill) and New York (Waterliet/Niskayuna/Colonie, New Lebanon, Groveland)

Always choose a non-invasive method to read a gravestone. Don't do a rubbing, don't add shaving cream, don't use flour on a stone. Instead, use a large mirror to direct bright sunlight onto the face of the stone, or -- if you can -- visit the cemetery at different times of the day and under different lighting conditions and photograph what can be read easily.

My goal as a contributor to Find a Grave is to help preserve the historic, artistic, and genealogical details of grave stones by photographing them. Locally, and when traveling, I seek out and capture images of the at-risk, almost illegible, unusual, oldest, deteriorating, or possibly overlooked markers encountered, as well as newer stones that "call" to me...or are unique or interesting. Reviewing published transcriptions and "readings" to add in burials missing from the Find a Grave database has helped tremendously when identifying stones that had been considered impossible to read. Since 2015, I've captured images of the oldest surviving stones in over 160 cemeteries. Hopefully I have been able to "discover" your ancestor's grave as a way to pay it forward for those who have done the same for me.

*************************
Researching the surnames Banks - Breckenridge - Champney - Gee / Jay - Green - Henry - Hudson - Kreinheder - McCulley - Monzingo - Pellman - Robinson - Schooler ... and more since 1983

Photographing primarily in the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier counties of New York State

Studying the Shaker communities in Kentucky (Pleasant Hill) and New York (Waterliet/Niskayuna/Colonie, New Lebanon, Groveland)